


Until I Found Your Hands

by jannika



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-09
Updated: 2012-05-09
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jannika/pseuds/jannika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Liam is an avid comic reader, Zayn works at the local bookstore, Harry runs Open Mic Night, Louis has a long lost love, and Niall is just glad there is free beer at the Open Mic Night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until I Found Your Hands

**Author's Note:**

> For reference, the bookstore Zayn works at here is based on this local book store: <http://thebigideapgh.org/> in my head it is pretty much the same place. So. With love to [](http://folkloric-feel.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://folkloric-feel.livejournal.com/)**folkloric_feel** as always. (This fandom makes me so prolific. It is ridiculous.)

Tuesdays, Liam is pretty sure, are a vastly underrated day of the week. Really, except for that semester he had that horrid physics class at 7 in the morning every Tuesday, he's generally a huge fan. Mostly because Tuesdays are release days at the Book Hideout over on Fifth Street, which is Liam's very favorite bookstore and is the only place in town with a wide selection of local comics. So after two classes and a newspaper meeting and stopping for a large coffee, it's become his routine stop every week. The only downfall is the grouchy older guy that works there who always looks at Liam like he's judging him for buying comics when he could be buying large books on social justice or something.

Liam always thinks of a million things to say to that, because he's pretty sure he reads enough dense books to last the rest of his life in classes and he's on the newspaper and several other university committees and manages to get both of his ridiculous roommates to class nine days out of ten and he's a volunteer firefighter and he just really likes comics, okay, and seriously, what does this guy do other than glare at people? He never says any of that, of course, but he thinks it almost every week. It's not enough to put a damper on his Tuesday good moods, but he does always have to steel himself, just a little, before walking in the door.

On the third Tuesday in September, he walks in and almost drops his cup of coffee. The grouchy guy has been replaced by- well. Damn. The grouchy guy has been replaced by the single most attractive person Liam has ever seen his life. The single most attractive male person Liam has ever seen. And he doesn't look grouchy or like he's going to judge Liam, he's just giving him an amused sort of smile, probably because Liam is just sort of standing in the doorway, staring.

"Can I help you find something?" the guy says with a voice that is somehow better than his face. Liam pulls his eyes away from tracing the tattoos on the guy's forearms and says,

"Are you new here?" because he's an idiot like that sometimes.

"What?" the guy says, thankfully still smiling. Liam shakes his head a little and makes himself walk into the store and sip his coffee before saying,

"I'm here every Tuesday, and I've never seen you before." He only rambles a little as he says it, and he thinks that's a good sign even if he's still saying things he probably shouldn't.

"New term," the guy says, "I've always had classes on Tuesday afternoons until now."

"Oh," Liam says. "Right."

"So, did you need help?" the guy asks.

"I'm okay. Thanks, though," Liam says.

"Okay, well if you need anything, just let me know," the guy says, that same small amused smile on his lips as he turns around and heads to the counter. Liam heads over to the display of local comics, grabbing the ones he doesn't already have and trying to think of a reason to stay and stare at this guy a little more. He can't think of anything, unfortunately, and he's got a pile of homework to do, and he promised he'd make dinner tonight, mostly to get his roommates to eat something that isn't Taco Bell. So he heads over to the counter and puts his comics down, trying to read the tattoo on the guy's collarbone as subtly as he can.

"So, I'll be seeing you every week, then?" the guy asks as he puts Liam's purchases into a bag.

"Yeah," Liam says, nodding just a little too quickly. The guy grins.

"I'm Zayn," he says.

"What?" Liam asks, a little thrown.

"I thought I'd introduce myself, since we'll be seeing a lot of each other," the guy- Zayn, says.

"Oh. I'm Liam," Liam says, and he is rewarded with a large, genuine smile from Zayn that is enough to make him think that from now on no other day will even be able to come close to competing with Tuesdays.

When he gets home that night, after making a dinner that Niall picks all the vegetables out of, Liam does not Google every local school on his computer in a attempt to find out who started back this week, because that would be stalking. (He's disappointed to see that three different schools went back yesterday, which is really no help at all.)

**

The next morning, he's browsing one of those three websites and trying to tell himself it's not stalking while he waits for his coffee to brew and his toast to pop. Which is, of course, when Louis saunters into their kitchen, backpack over his shoulder and starts reading off Liam's screen.

"Transferring on us?" he asks.

"No, I was. They offer a class. That. I was thinking. For summer," Liam says, or fails to say, really.

"You met someone!" Louis says, delighted. It is irritating how well Louis knows him, it really is.

"No," Liam says.

"Yes. I know these things," Louis says.

"I don't know if it's anything," Liam says, "I just met him yesterday when I was getting my comics."

"You and your comics," Louis says, wrinkling his nose, "I refuse to believe you met a cute guy while you were buying comics together."

"He works there, he might not even like comics and he might have a girlfriend. Or twelve." Liam says.

"Or you two might fall in geek love forever," Louis says. Liam hits him.

"Go to class," he says.

"Yes sir," Louis says, stealing a piece of Liam's toast as he heads out the door, "You might have to throw some water on Niall, by the way. I threw a sweatshirt at him and he ignored me."

Liam groans. It's hard to be personally responsible for three people graduating.

**

The following Tuesday Zayn is sitting at the counter studying when Liam goes to check out, and he takes that as a sign that he should ask Zayn where he goes to school.

"You're a local fan?" Zayn asks, starting conversation before Liam has a chance.

"Yeah," Liam says, "I've been following a few for a while now, but I think this new one is my favorite," he finishes, gesturing to the top of his stack where a comic that's only on its third issue is sitting.

"Yeah?" Zayn asks.

"It's totally brilliant," Liam says, "do you know it at all?"

"A little, I like it too. It's got promise," Zayn says, smiling and counting Liam's money. Liam takes that as a chance to change the subject- not that he doesn't want to geek out about comics with Zayn, and not that he's not thrilled to know he appears to also be at least sort of a fan, but he's still curious about the school thing.

"So, where do you go to school?" he asks, trying not sound awkward.

"I'm at the Art Institute," Zayn says, then he glances at Liam's coffee cup, "You know we have coffee here, right? For free?"

"You do?" Liam asks, because he's honestly never noticed that before and now he feels a little stupid in the parts of his mind that can focus on anything other than the knowledge that Zayn is an artist. An artist who likes comics and has tattoos and is the most attractive person Liam has ever seen.

"Yeah," Zayn says, then he points over toward a small table where a coffee pot and cups and multiple kinds of cream and sweetener sit.

"Oh," Liam says, and then since his cup is mostly empty and since it will give him another few minutes with Zayn, he heads over to the table he's never seen and pours himself a cup. Zayn watches him the whole time, looking amused.

"So what do you do?" Zayn asks as Liam puts cream in his coffee.

"Study English at Hampton, write for the paper, run track, read comics, babysit my roommates, fight fires," Liam says. Which. Is probably a little more than Zayn was asking for, but it all slips out before he can stop himself.

"Fight fires?" Zayn asks.

"Volunteer," Liam clarifies. Zayn looks impressed, and Liam has to swallow the little rush he gets at that, "Thanks for the coffee."

"It sounds like you need all the coffee you can get," Zayn says, grinning.

Liam thinks that's probably a very good point.

**

After that, there is coffee poured and waiting for him, prepared exactly the way he likes it, every Tuesday when he gets to the shop.

**

In the middle of October, Liam is standing in the shop one Tuesday, sipping his coffee and singing along to the music pumping over the speakers. The music has greatly, greatly improved since Zayn took over Tuesday afternoons, and Liam has found himself spending more and more time there, heading straight for comics but then browsing the rest of the shop and making conversation with Zayn. He's singing to himself and flipping through a book when Zayn, who had been on the phone, walks over.

"You sing?" he asks.

"What?"

"I've heard you a couple times, singing."

"Oh," Liam says, a little embarrassed.

"You didn't mention that on your list of things you do," Zayn says.

"I don't really sing," Liam says, and Zayn raises an eyebrow at him.

"It sounds like you do," he says.

"Only for fun," Liam says. Zayn looks like he's about to say more, but then the phone rings again and Zayn has to go answer it.

When Liam gets home that night, he finds a flier for the shop's upcoming Open Mic Night stuck in between his comics.

**

The next morning, he realizes that leaving the Open Mic Flier in the living room had been a huge mistake, because he wakes up to Louis freaking out.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he yells at Liam. He's weirdly wide awake, and Liam wonders if he bothered to sleep at all.

"Tell you what?" Liam asks, rubbing his eyes.

"This!" he shouts, waving the flier in Liam's face.

"The Open Mic Night?" Liam asks, totally lost. Louis flounces back on the couch.

"No! Look who is hosting it!" he says. Liam stares at the flier and at a name that means nothing to him.

"Harry Styles?" he asks, blinking.

"Yes!" Louis says, still shouting, and shouting loud enough that Niall comes out of his room too, glaring at both of them.

"What are we yelling about?" Niall asks.

"Liam didn't tell me he knew someone who knew Harry Styles!" Louis says.

"Who the fuck is Harry Styles?" Niall asks.

"Harry Styles is the long-lost love of my life," Louis says. Niall and Liam blink at him.

"What?" Liam asks.

"When I was eighteen I went to summer camp, and spent many glorious fire-pit-lit evenings making out with Harry Styles. We had sex in a canoe. And then the summer ended and we were torn apart, having no idea what happened to each other until this very moment!" Louis says.

"What do you mean, 'torn apart'? Didn't you like, exchange cell phone numbers?" Niall asks.

"Well, technically I was a counselor and he was only seventeen and a regular camper and it would have been inappropriate for us to exchange numbers," Louis says.

"But not for you to have sex?" Liam asks. Louis glares at him.

"Everyone's cell phone reception was shit and so no one used them all summer and we all pretended we were in some terrible 80's movie the whole summer and then I had to go to some counselor's retreat and when I got back, his parents had picked him up!" Louis says.

"You couldn't have like, looked him up on Facebook?" Niall asks.

"He wasn't on Facebook!" Louis says, "He was just gone, but now Liam found him for me again!"

"But I still don't understand why you didn't just exchange numbers," Niall says. Louis sighs.

"It was summer love, Niall. It had different rules."

"Summer love, huh?" Liam says, "did it happen so fast? Have you 'a blast'?"

"I hate you," Louis says, pouting like he hadn't made them both come to every single night of the production of Grease he'd been in last spring, "Both of you."

Louis storms off after that, but he sends Liam a text later that says,

_"We r going to the open mic. right?"_

**

That Tuesday, he decides he has to talk to Zayn about this Harry Styles thing, because a couple of possibilities have a occurred to him, one being that this a completely different Harry Styles, and the other being that this is the same Harry but that he's actually Zayn's boyfriend or something. The first would crush Louis and the second would crush both of them, so Liam thinks he should probably find out before they show up on Friday.

"So, I was going to bring some friends to the Open Mic thing," Liam says.

"Yeah?" Zayn asks, grinning.

"My friend saw the flier you put in my bag, and now he's convinced he has to come," Liam says, proud of himself for putting the 'you put in my bag' part in there.

"Because of the flier?" Zayn asks.

"Because of the name on the flier."

"Harry?"

"Yeah. My friend thinks Harry is like, his long-lost camp love or something? Does that sound at all possible?" Liam asks.

"You know, I think he did once mention sleeping with a camp counselor when we were drunk," Zayn says, smiling. Liam breathes a small sigh of relief. This is good.

"You guys are close, then?" he asks, just to clarify. He's pretty sure that if they were together or something that Zayn wouldn't be too pleased about all this, but still. (Actually, he's still not sure if Zayn is into boys at all. Louis says the weekly coffee is a sign they might be soulmates, but every time Liam thinks he's sure Zayn is at the very least bisexual and sort of maybe interested, he talks himself out of it, convinced it's just wishful thinking.)

"Yeah, Harry's one of my best friends, he works here on Thursday mornings," Zayn says. Liam grins.

This could make Friday very, very interesting.

**

On Friday night, Liam, Louis and Niall slide into a small table in the middle. The shop has been transformed, displays dragged into backrooms to make way for the stage and a small bar. Zayn walks over to them and Louis actually bites his lip a little.

"Holy God," Louis says when Zayn gets close, "are you Zayn? Liam has much, much better taste than I give him credit for," he finishes. Liam kicks him under the table and casts Zayn an apologetic look.

"You must be Liam's friends," he says, looking more unfazed by Louis than Liam thinks most people would be. Liam thinks that's a good sign, even if he still wants to kill Louis.

"Friends? Liam here is the non-romantic love of my life. If things don't work out with you two and we're both still alone when we're fifty we'll probably move back in together and get cats. We'll be crazy, old, gay, cat men. It will be very, very pathetic, but there is no one I'd rather be pathetic and bitter with," Louis says. Liam hates him.

"What about me?" Niall asks.

"You, Niall, enjoy life far too much to be pathetic and bitter. In fact, I have no doubt that one day soon you will actually talk to a girl before your third beer of the night, and you'll find each other so charming that by six months later I'll be planning your wedding. I'd make a fantastic wedding planner, don't you think?" Louis says.

"I think I'd hire someone else," Niall says. Then he turns to look at Zayn, "how much are you guys charging for beer?"

"It's free. There is an optional donation, but it's free," Zayn says.

"I like you already," Niall says. Then he gets up and heads toward the beer.

"You just made Niall's whole night," Louis says to Zayn.

"Free beer is Niall's favorite kind of beer," Liam confirms. Zayn gets called away then, and he waves and promises he'll be back and says he can't wait to hear Liam sing, and then Liam takes a minute to full on glare at Louis again.

"I hate you so much," he says.

"You love me, and you're an idiot," Louis says.

"Why am I an idiot?" Liam asks.

"Because that man is a God, and if you weren't into him and if I wasn't here on a mission I would want to lick him, and if he wasn't so into you, he would be all for that plan," Louis says.

"How do you possibly know that?" Liam asks.

"Sometimes, Liam, I say things just to watch people's reactions when I say them. You can learn a lot about people that way," Louis explains. Liam wants to debate the validity of this technique, but then he feels eyes on them from across the room. He turns to see a guy with curly hair staring at them intensely. The guy seems to be trying to decide something, and then the look on his face changes and he gets up and runs towards them and then plants himself directly on Louis' lap. Which Liam assumes means he's Harry.

"Louis!" Probably-Harry says, beaming. Louis is grinning brighter than Liam has ever seen.

"Hey, Harry," Louis says, pulling Harry down for a kiss and twining their fingers while Liam just sort of stares at them. He's not sure how it's possible for people who have been separated for three years, people who only had a camp fling to start with, to be falling back into each other so quickly, but he's also never seen Louis look so genuinely happy, not even when he's on stage.

"I'm Liam," Liam offers, because he feels like he should do something besides watch them with their heads pressed together. Harry turns to look at him.

"Zayn's Liam?" he asks.

Liam decides he likes Harry a lot.

**

After Liam sings, he finds Zayn standing just off the stage, staring at him.

"You should really add that to your list of things you do. You were amazing," he says. Liam grins, and the rush of singing on stage and the way watching Harry and Louis had made his heart feel and the things Louis said and the way Harry had called him Zayn's are giving him this rush of confidence. So after he says,

"Thanks," he adds, "I was wondering something."

"What's that?" Zayn asks.

"If we could, like, exchange numbers, hang out on some time that isn't a Tuesday?" he asks. He tries to keep it as casual sounding as possible, just in case. Zayn pulls out his phone instantly.

"Only if you promise you'll still stop by every Tuesday," he says. Liam beams.

"I'll be there," he says.

Walking out, with Zayn's number in his phone, Liam cannot shake how good he feels about his entire life.

**

The next Tuesday, after some texts exchanged over the weekend, Liam walks into the bookstore as usual. He grabs his coffee and heads for the comics, excited that his favorite, that new one, has a new issue out. Zayn walks up behind him.

"You should check out page 17," he says. Liam turns through the pages to find page 17, where there is a character Liam doesn't recognize from other issues, a new character. A firefighting new character.

Oh. _Oh._

"Oh," he says, "is that?"

"Yeah," Zayn says.

"This is. You do this?" Liam asks.

"I do," Zayn confirms.

"And you drew me?"

"I did."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Liam asks, eyes darting between Zayn's face and the drawing on the page. The character based on him has dialogue and probably plot things, but he is in no place to process that.

"I just did," Zayn says. They stare at each other for a moment and then Zayn adds, "I'm not sure I did you justice."

"I've never looked so good," Liam says.

"You didn't see you on stage," Zayn says- and that, that is the moment that Liam is one hundred percent sure that none of this is in his head, so he sort of swallows and then he puts down his coffee and the issue and puts a hand on Zayn's arm. Zayn's face breaks into the brightest smile yet, and then he has an arm around the back of Liam's neck, pulling him in close. There is a moment when their foreheads are together and they are just sort of breathing, and then they are kissing and Liam has no idea who leaned in first but it doesn't matter because they are kissing and their bodies are getting closer and closer together and everything is honestly perfect, as far as Liam can tell. Zayn pulls back and grins,

"I've wanted to do that since the first day you walked in here," he says.

"Me too," Liam says, and Zayn runs a finger over Liam's lips and then says,

"Hang on." Then he walks over to the counter and grabs a piece of paper off it, then walks over and tapes it to the door, facing out. He walks back to Liam, looking proud of himself.

"What was that?" Liam asks, pulling Zayn in so they they're touching again as soon as Zayn is close enough to reach.

"A 'be back in an hour' sign," Zayn says, smirking. Liam shivers.

"You had it made already?" he asks.

"I was feeling hopeful," Zayn says, and then he's tugging on Liam and pulling them towards the backroom and Liam's brain sort of melts because this is actually happening.

"Can't you get in trouble for this?" he asks, even as he's licking Zayn's neck.

"At this place? I think everyone would just congratulate me," Zayn says, getting his hands under Liam's shirt.

"Oh. We only have an hour?" Liam asks, whimpering a little at Zayn's touch. Zayn leans up to kiss Liam again, still smirking.

"We'll take longer if we need to, I promise. And you know, you could come home with me after my shift, if you wanted."

"Yeah?" Liam asks, and between the way he's never been so turned on and the way his heart is swelling, it's almost too much for him to take.

"You could stay," Zayn says. It's ridiculous the way Liam wants to say yes and ask if Zayn means forever because, hey, Louis and Harry need their space anyway, he's sure, and he's certain he could spend forever just kissing Zayn like this, but since they haven't actually known each other that long and since this part of their relationship started today, he figures that's a little premature, so he just nods his head and kisses back and figures they can work at all the details later.  



End file.
